Galata Turkish Ice Cream

**What makes this different:** While Extraordinary Desserts and Pappalecco lean into sit-down indulgence and the gelato carts work the tourist angle with standard flavors, Galata brings the actual Turkish technique—dondurma that stretches, resists the scoop, and plays with texture in a way you don't find anywhere else downtown. The mastic gum gives it that chewy, almost savory backbone; the pistachio tastes like actual pistachios, not almond filler with green food coloring. This isn't a novelty—it's what ice cream looks like when it's engineered for hot Mediterranean summers instead of American freezer cases.

The staff works patient, letting people sample half the menu without the usual downtown rush-and-flip energy. They'll walk you through the mastic gum thing (it's a resin, it's traditional, it changes the mouthfeel), explain why the texture lands somewhere between gelato and taffy, and not make you feel dumb for asking. The space stays bright and clean—more Beyoğlu sweet shop than Gaslamp party district, which feels deliberate given the location two blocks from the convention center.

The baklava situation runs solid too, though it's the ice cream that justifies the visit. Pistachio and mastic gum are the moves; skip the flavors you could get anywhere else. This works as a post-meal stop after tacos or ramen, or as the thing you drag out-of-town friends to when they claim they've "tried everything" downtown. Street parking's a disaster as always; the trolley drops you a block away.